


Gentlemens' Agreement

by Not_You



Series: one only understands the things that one tames [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - BDSM, Boundaries, Clint Needs a Hug, Contracts, M/M, Past Abuse, Phil Coulson & Nick Fury Friendship, Trust Issues, so many trust issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Nick Fury dumps one of his many problems on an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Phil has gotten used to all sorts of strangeness in his life, but he’s not expecting this. Nick wanting him to foster one of the agency’s subs is a whole new kind of strange. SHIELD’s holding of collars in trust is a holdover, a tradition from the bad old days when any unclaimed sub ran the risk of someone nonconsensually changing that. These days such arrangements are just a formality, a way for an employer to express concern for the well-being of any submissives working for it, and an assurance of at least some protection from harassment by doms unworthy of the name. No one actually _fosters_ subs anymore. The term is archaic, the institution almost entirely replaced in America by more professional training arrangements, therapy, or both in tandem.

“Sir, I’m not certain I understand you.”

“I think you do, Coulson. I want you to foster Barton. Take him into your home to share bed and board and to serve you all the time he’s not working. A real Victorian arrangement.”

“With discipline at my discretion?”

“Of course.”

Phil has always been old-fashioned, protective and possessive, and something stirs inside him at the idea of having someone so completely entrusted to him. The more sensible parts of him are panicking, but he knows the look on Nick’s face. Refusal is not going to work here, and Barton must be doing worse than Phil thought for Nick to come up with something this outré and labor-intensive. “Where is he now?”

“Cooling his heels in the brig.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Sitwell seemed to have a handle on him.”

“Seemed, you say.”

“Yes. Here’s the incident report.”

Phil reads the report in full before going anywhere. About the mission and Barton’s reaction afterward, his tantrum that had destroyed Sitwell’s office. Phil sighs. Troubled subs can get into very bad habits, but there’s no excuse for this. He asks Nick for Barton’s file, and for any of Sitwell’s notes on dealing with him. Knowing Phil as well as he does, Nick has these on hand. Barton’s story is a mess, a litany of abuse and neglect and terrible doms from childhood on up. Every possible punishment a sub can endure has been tried on him, including some that aren’t even legal. Phil feels sick to his stomach by the time he moves on to Sitwell’s notes, and they don’t help him feel any better. Jasper Sitwell is a good man and a good dom, but Phil can already tell that a case like Barton’s requires special handling. Making him write lines and apologize and take five minutes’ time out to think things over will only go so far.

“All right,” Phil says at last, “where’s the contract?”

The contract is as close to hand as the files were, and Phil reads it over carefully before signing, glad to find all the clauses and limits in proper order. That done, they head down to the brig and find the cell where Barton is sitting on the bunk and glowering, his elbows on his knees.

“The fuck you want?” He growls. A professional sub would rise, and a more old-fashioned one might kneel. Barton doesn’t even duck his head, watching them with blue eyes that look fierce. Phil wonders if Nick can see the terror behind it. He probably can, you don’t come this far by not being able to read people.

“To take you home, I’m tired.” It comes out before he thinks, but the truth is a good place to start.

“…What.” Clint gets to his feet, his whole body tense, his weight on his toes and his feet braced apart, so he’s balanced and ready to run or fight in any direction. It’s worse than Phil thought, and his heart sinks.

Nick groans. “Damn it, Barton. I’ll do a lot of illegal shit, but selling subs isn’t in it. Coulson is gonna foster you. That’s it. You’re going home with him, but you don’t have to put out and can leave if you hate it there.”

Clint just grumbles, but he does relax a little. “And what happens if I don’t wanna go?”

“Then I treat you like you have your shit together and aren’t a distressed sub, and you spend two weeks in the brig and submit to a psych eval when you come out.”

“…Shit,” Barton mutters. “Okay, I’ll fucking go with Coulson.”

“Thank you, dear,” Phil says, and keys the door open.

“Fuck you, boss.”

“Absolutely not, I’m too tired and too old-fashioned. Is there anything you’d like to bring with you tonight?” Clint just stares for a long moment, then nods and lets Phil and Nick escort him to the sub barracks, where he gathers up some street clothes, his work gear, and a locked metal box with DO NOT TOUCH. THIS FUCKING MEANS YOU. in permanent ink across the top.

“This in the contract?” He asks Nick.

“There’s a stipulation that any limits you set about anything you own must be respected.”

“Good, ‘cause I’ll fucking end anyone who touches this box or anything in it and I don’t fucking care what happens.”

“That’s fair. Nobody touches my Cap memorabilia, either.”

“…Cap memorabilia?”

“Huge fan, always have been.” Phil yawns and wobbles a bit despite his best efforts. Clint gives him a strange look so brief it almost doesn’t happen, and sets his stuff down on the bed and turns to Nick.

“Let me sign the contract so we can get out of here.”

Nick pulls it out in a slow, deliberate way to remind Clint of who he’s fucking with, but hands it over and is silent while Clint reads and then signs, handing it back and picking his things up again. “After you, boss,” he says to Coulson.

“Wonderful.” Coulson nods a farewell to Nick, yawns again, and leads the way down to the car. “Put your stuff in the back and ride wherever you want.” He’s not surprised when Clint takes the shotgun seat. Pets and real humiliation junkies tend to insist on the back, and Clint strikes him as neither. Well, maybe a bit of a pet, but only on a much better day than this one. Clint is quiet for the drive to Phil’s little house. Phil prefers apartments, but after having a tiny portal to a hostile universe open up in his kitchen and having to explain to the super why there were burn marks on his ceiling, he had conceded to necessity and gotten the house. Now he’s glad of it, because the place came with an adjoining bedroom, good for either a nursery or the much rarer case of fostering a sub.

“So where am I gonna sleep?” Clint asks as he carries his things across the threshold in a moment that feels entirely too significant.

“I have a second bedroom.” Phil says, leading him upstairs. “It adjoins mine, but there’s a door you can lock between us, and I will never enter your room without your permission unless I have reason to fear for your safety.”

Clint snorts. “Sure you won’t.”

“It would be a breach of contract. SHIELD has good lawyers.”

“Good to know,” Clint says, rolling his eyes. Phil opens the door for him and watches as he prowls in, looking wary. Phil tries to keep things nice, and the room is clean, the bed made up with a blue and green quilt even though Phil never has guests. On the wall is a picture of a young girl in a collar, stroking a tiger where it rests its head in her lap, looking half-asleep and utterly content. Despite the rule about guest-room art, Phil actually likes it a lot, but some artistic soul painted Phil’s room in a shade of barely-pink that clashes with the tiger’s pelt. Clint studies the picture for a long moment before hanging his clothes up in the closet because there’s nowhere else to put them. Bureaus are the devil’s work, designed to disorganize and wrinkle wardrobes, even if everything Clint has is field gear or a t-shirt. Done with the clothes, he stows his weapons with them as well as around the room in the paranoid pattern that is an occupational hazard for both of them. Last of all, he puts the box under the bed.

“The bathroom is on the other side of my room, after the linen closet, where you’ll also find more blankets if there’s some kind of freak cold snap. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen if you’re hungry, and remember to turn off all the lights after yourself.” Clint salutes, and it’s only a little bit sarcastic. “There’s also another bathroom downstairs. Good night.”

“…Night,” Clint says, and shuts the door. It’s definitely not a slam, and Phil thinks that’s a good sign.


	2. Chapter 2

Over the next week, Clint is what Phil still sometimes thinks of as an ‘orange’, high school slang (when dinosaurs ruled the earth) for a sub who generally obeys despite a show of defiance. Tough and bitter on the outside, sweet on the inside. Phil has never been that into discipline at home, anyway. He got more than enough of that in the military, and he really doesn’t care if Clint flips him the bird while muttering about Phil being a fucking pain in the ass when Phil tells him to stop goofing off and finish his paperwork, just so long as he drops what he’s doing and does it. A lot of doms would feel the need to correct this behavior, but they would be missing the point. Clint is defiant and fights authority because so many people have wanted to force him into being “correct.” When Phil doesn’t rise to the bait as the days go by, Clint relaxes a little. He stops cursing quite so much, and complains less. 

Two weeks in, when Phil is wincing and trying to unkink his neck, Clint comes over and very softly offers to help him with it, as if he expects Phil to push him away. Phil of course does nothing of the kind, and bows his head to give Clint space to work. His hands are strong and surprisingly gentle with Phil, slowly and firmly working the tension out of his muscles. Phil hisses and groans, the sensation equal parts pain and pleasure. When Clint gruffly declares himself done, Phil looks up and is pleasantly surprised to see him blushing. Phil can’t help a soft smile.

“Thank you, Clint.”

“Fuck off,” Clint growls, and storms away. That night he destroys the quilt on his bed, which is wasteful and upsetting even if it is just a store-bought one. He answers Phil’s knock on the adjoining door when the thumping and tearing wakes him up in the small hours, and just stands there in the middle of a blizzard of batting, snarling.

Phil blinks, not quite feeling up to this in his boxers at one in the morning. “Clint, what are you doing?”

“What the fuck does it look like?” Clint snarls, covered in cotton batting.

“It looks like you’re tearing up the quilt. And that you’re upset. What’s wrong?”

“That’s what’s fucking wrong! What the hell kind of dom are you? What the fuck is going on here?”

“One who doesn’t enjoy or even really believe in punishment, Clint. Your discipline has been left at my discretion, and I choose not to punish you.”

“…The fuck is wrong with you.”

“Oh, many things.”

Clint grits his teeth and turns his back, every line of his body furious. “Look, I could put up with Sitwell’s bullshit little bitch punishments, but what the hell _is_ this?! What the fuck do you think I _am_?”

Phil is alarmed to hear tears in Clint’s voice. “I think you don’t need to be punished.”

“You are such a fucking idiot,” Clint growls, fists clenched at his sides.

Phil sighs. “May I come in?”

“No!”

Phil nods. “Well, I told you where the blankets are if you need another one.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“You’re fucking insane!” Clint whips around to face him, tears past and now onto rage.

“Perhaps. What should I do to you?”

“I dunno, a fucking jab collar or something!”

“…You know, I have never even owned one of those?”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true, I swear.” Phil yawns and grabs his bathrobe, wrapping it around himself for warmth before sitting on the floor, every toe scrupulously on his own side of the doorway. “I dated a guy for a while who liked that sort of thing, but he already had his own.”

“…People like that shit?” Clint stares down at him, nonplussed.

“Some people.” Phil’s heart aches to think of a non-consenting sub trying to breathe around the inward-pointing prongs of that kind of collar. “Even if you can’t believe I won’t punish you, I hope you’ll come to realize that I certainly won’t hurt you.”

“Ugh.” Clint scrubs his forearm over his eyes. “…I’m sorry about the quilt. I got pissed off.”

“That’s what I thought. Cooled down now?”

“Uh, yeah.” Clint looks around the room. “Jesus, I’m such a dickhead.”

“No, you’re not. But please at least try to talk to someone the next time you feel like this.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Clint sighs, settling down on the floor and crossing his legs, leaning forward the way he was in the brig when Phil came to collect him. “…I am sorry. I don’t know why I get like this.”

“I know, Clint.” Clint shivers, and Phil sighs. “I keep meaning to get you your own bathrobe. Remind me tomorrow, I have the day off.”

“…Jesus, boss.”

“I can be shockingly domestic, and I’m really not going to punish you. Not even covertly.”

“You’re fucking crazy.”

“It’s a distinct possibility.” Phil yawns again. “I’m also very tired. Will you be all right if I go back to bed?”

Clint snorts. “I don’t need fucking _aftercare_ for wrecking your shit.”

Phil chuckles. “If you say so. Good night, Clint.” He stands and closes the door, and falls asleep to the faint noises of Clint fetching another blanket and cleaning up his mess.

Clint is wary the whole next day, to a level that breaks Phil’s heart to think about all the unclear rules, dishonesty, and delayed punishments that must have caused it. Phil fights the impulse to treat Clint very gently, pretty sure that that would only make him more tense. As it is, Phil just feeds his sub breakfast and makes sure he’s comfortable before going out to acquire groceries and a bathrobe. He’s relieved to find the house still standing upon his return, and pleasantly surprised to walk in on Clint sweeping the floor. His arms turn any basic hand task into porn, and Phil takes a deep breath as he shuts the door behind him, juggling his three bags.

“Need a hand, boss?”

“Thank you.” He hands over two of them and toes off his shoes, leading Clint into the kitchen where they deposit everything on the island.

“Did you seriously get me a bathrobe?” Clint asks, staring into his non-food bag.

“I said I would. Rumor has it purple’s your favorite color?”

“…Yeah.” He stares down at the plush terrycloth for a long time, and then shakes himself out of his reverie and helps Phil put the groceries away. He even manages to finish the sweeping before skittering away with his new acquisition. Phil has no idea whether or not Clint will destroy the thing during his next fit, but he feels like it’s important to give Clint things. He can tell that there haven’t been enough presents in Clint’s life.

That evening, Phil is gratified to see Clint come padding down the stairs wrapped in rich purple. He looks freshly scrubbed, well-behaved, and adorable. Phil is settled on the couch with a bag of organic cheese popcorn and an old episode of _Doctor Who_ , and beams up at Clint as he comes over.

“Watcha watchin’, boss?”

“ _Doctor Who_. Care to join me? There’s popcorn.” He proffers the bag, and Clint hesitates for a brief and fragile moment before sitting beside Phil, carefully drawing his feet up to cover them with the robe. He takes a handful of popcorn and nibbles away at one piece at a time, watching as cheetah-people on horseback hunt humans.

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Clint mutters, and Phil laughs.

“Yes, it is.”

Clint looks sidelong at him and smiles just a little. “Didn’t think this would be your kind of thing.”

“Oh? Thought I’d go in for documentaries and Great Film?”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“That stuff’s all very well in moderation. More popcorn?” It’s not exactly hand-feeding or even a good nourishing meal, but Phil has always been such a sucker for feeding subs that it doesn’t matter much. Clint winds up finishing the bag, and by the end of the episode has worked his way down to Phil’s end of the couch. He sits close, but doesn’t quite lean on Phil, just warm and present. And that’s more than good enough. “I like having you here,” Phil says as the credits roll, and is heartbroken at Clint’s half-suppressed flinch. “I just thought you should know that,” he says as soothingly as he can, and does not move.

“Thanks,” Clint whispers, and slowly relaxes again. “And thanks for the robe.”

“You’re welcome.” Phil just barely doesn’t call him ‘sweetheart,’ and wonders if this is going to become a problem.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Gentlemens' Agreement](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4588956) by [OnlyAugustine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyAugustine/pseuds/OnlyAugustine)




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